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A United States District Judge in San Jose awarded Facebook, the social-networking giant, $711 million in damages in an anti-spam case. The lawsuit was filed by the Palo Alto company against online marketer Sanford Wallace, who is known as the "Spam King". Court documents say Wallace and his associates started a spam and phishing scheme after they registered as Facebook members in November 2008. As members of this social network, the defendants sent numerous Facebook members a link to a website tricking them into revealing their login information. Some spam messages were sent to the network members to promote sales for other websites. After they gained others' login information, they used others' Facebook accounts to send more spam messages, the suit said. Wallace is a well-known spammer and he even gave himself a nickname Spamford. Prior to his spammining business, he already sent junk faxes, a practice outlawed in the U.S., according to wikipedia. Early in March 2009, Judge Jeremy Fogel issued a temporary restraining order and later a preliminary injunction against Wallace. Fogel said in his order filed Thursday that Wallace violated the CAN-SPAM act 'with blatant disregard" for others' rights. In addition to the award, the judge is also referring Wallace to the US Attorney's office for criminal contempt charges for his violating the restraining order and injunction. Facebook initially sought $7.5 billion in damages against Wallace. But Fogel rejected the request and instead awarded Facebook $710,737,650. Facebook reportedly won nearly a record $873 million judgment against a Canadian resident who was accused of sending millions of bogus messages from members' accounts to advertise mostly male enhancement drugs. Wallace and his fellow internet marketer, Walter Rines, lost a case in 2008 to MySpace, a Facebook rival, which was awarded $235 million. Facebook may not recover much of the award as Wallace already filed for bankruptcy early this year. The company acknowledged that it does not expect to receive the vast majority of the award, but does believe that the ruling will "act as a continued deterrent against these criminals." |
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